Climate Local: acting on climate change Ward councillor workbook This workbook is a learning aid for councillors on the roles, opportunities and drivers for council-led action on the changing climate, both to reduce local carbon emissions and to build resilience to extreme weather.

It sets out the benefits for local people and places – lower bills, opportunities to generate income, and to avoid some of the damage costs from weather events. It is relevant to councillors at ward level – but also touches on some of the key opportunities in portfolio area. Further information is available from the Climate Local reference guides and worksheets which provide further detail on topic areas.

Make your way through the workbook in your own time, in your own way and at your own pace. In all it will take you two to three hours to complete. You might prefer to dip into the book from time to time or tackle it in one go. You could also go through the book with a fellow councillor or councillors, sharing your thoughts and ideas in relation to your community.

The important thing is to think about the issues presented in the workbook, their relevance to your local setting, the people you serve and the council as a whole. This workbook includes a number of features designed to help you think about the role that you and your council can play in creating a low carbon, climate-resilient community. It includes key facts, case studies and questions to help prompt your thinking on key areas:

- why the agenda matters
- the role you and your council can play, particularly around leadership
- the opportunities for taking action, focusing on:
  - the economy
  - housing and planning
  - environment and transport
  - health and social care
  - finance.

In working through the material contained in this workbook you will encounter a number of features designed to help you think about your role in chairing meetings. These features are represented by the symbols shown below:

- **Guidance** – this is used to indicate research, quotations, explanations and definitions that you may find helpful.

- **Challenges** – these are questions or queries raised in the text which ask you to reflect on your role or approach – in essence, they are designed to be thought-provokers.

- **Case studies** – these are ‘pen pictures’ of approaches used by other people or organisations.

- **Useful links** – these are signposts to sources of further information and support, outside of the workbook, which may help with principles, processes, methods and approaches. A full list of useful additional information and support is also set out in the appendices to the workbook. Why does this agenda matter?

Action to cut carbon and increase resilience can save councils thousands of pounds on their energy bills while also avoiding millions of pounds of future costs that will be incurred if no adaptive actions are taken.

There are also substantial opportunities to be had in this area as well. At a time when jobs are hard to come by, the low carbon economy is one of the few sectors that is set to thrive.

Councils can work to ensure that their area benefits as much as possible from employment in this sector. Further economic benefits will accrue from helping people without jobs or on low incomes to heat homes affordably, freeing up spending power for other goods and services.

With energy bills on the increase, fuel poverty is also rising, and this costs the NHS around £1.4 billion a year. Tackling the causes of fuel poverty, rather than the symptoms, will result in this bill being reduced, making economic sense as well as increasing wellbeing.

There are also opportunities to avoid future costs by improving the resilience of council services to withstand the future climate – hotter, drier summers and greater risk of flooding.

The low carbon economy is already worth £122 billion to the UK. Globally it is worth £3.3 trillion.

The sector already employs 900,000 people, with another 400,000 jobs predicted by 2014/15.

Annual damage to UK properties due to flooding from rivers and the sea currently totals around £1.3 billion.

For England and Wales alone, the figure is projected to rise to between £2.1 billion and £12 billion by the 2080s if no adaptive action is taken.

Cheshire and Cheshire West Council

Community engagement on severe weather The council is working with Local Enterprise Partnerships, large employers, community groups and others to help communities deal with severe weather and highlight the economic and social risks and opportunities. Councils can play a significant role in realising the benefits and opportunities of climate action in their area. They are ideally placed to bring agendas together to ensure ‘win-win’ outcomes for the local community. In this sense climate action is not a ‘new’ or ‘different’ agenda.

Coordinating action to retrofit homes, for example, can help address fuel poverty, create local jobs, cut carbon and make homes more resilient to the effects of severe weather.

Leadership

Councils have an important leadership role in creating low carbon and climate-resilient communities. Individual councillors also have an important leadership role. This role includes:

- offering vision and direction to local groups, and building support for that vision
- identifying and advocating opportunities to mainstream ownership and responsibility for climate action across the council
- participate in plan making and decisions on climate action
- representing local level concerns and perspectives to the council and other important local organisations
- encouraging and empowering residents and businesses to participate and act
- brokering agreements between different interests and partners, working across sectors to facilitate and encourage coordinated action.

Councils have significant scope to influence emissions in buildings, surface transport and waste, which together account for 40 per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions.

Seventy-six per cent of the public agree or agree strongly that councils have a key role in tackling climate change.

What is climate leadership?

- Demonstrating leadership within the council, developing a vision and mainstreaming ownership and responsibility
- Communication and engagement, listening and engaging with the community
- Establishing partnerships for action
- Making things happen, e.g. supporting local energy projects, actively championing flood defence measures
- Representing: advocating for change at national, regional and local levels, looking after the interests of the vulnerable
- Empowering communities: providing support, funding, information and capacity
- Transparency and accountability about goals, actions and progress against targets Exercise 1

(a) What are the opportunities for showing leadership on climate action in your council area?

(b) What ward-level priorities could council action to create low-carbon, climate-resilient communities help address?

(c) What local organisations can you work with to help realise opportunities within your ward?

(d) What obstacles to action are there? How can they be overcome?

(e) What questions should I ask of my council decision-makers to help achieve change? What are the opportunities?

Economy

Councils can work in a wide variety of ways to support the growth of a low carbon economy and ensure that businesses are less vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, delivering huge economic, social and environmental benefits.

Key opportunities include:

- **supporting local economic growth** through the development of a low carbon economic strategy that identifies local opportunities and supports the development of local jobs, knowledge and infrastructure.

- **helping local businesses to cut costs and increase competitiveness** by working with them to cut energy, water and resource use.

- **boosting local employment by ensuring that practical training opportunities are provided in local colleges**, including in energy assessment and the installation of solar panels.

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Leeds City Council

**Stern review**

Leeds City Region undertook a ‘Stern’ review for the region in 2012. This showed that the region’s energy bill was £5.4bn with huge scope for savings through commercially viable energy action.

Councils and local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) are already engaged in a wide range of action to promote the low carbon economy – with the new freedoms available under the ‘general power of competence’ offering huge scope for action. Exercise 2

(a) How will your local economy be affected by the changing climate?

(b) How can the council improve local resilience and support local businesses to plan for extreme weather?

(c) What are the strengths, opportunities and natural advantages for developing the low carbon sector in your ward and the wider local area?

(d) What could you do to support low carbon activity in your ward? Housing and planning

There are major opportunities for councils to support local growth and improve people’s lives by making improvements to the local housing stock, setting the framework for development in local plans and by working with local partners to support those most vulnerable. These include:

- **saving money for the council and local people** by ensuring that local homes, businesses and public buildings use energy and water efficiently
- **helping the most vulnerable** by understanding who is most at risk from fuel poverty and the impacts of extreme weather such as flooding, over-heating and cold
- **boosting the local economy** by creating new demand for low-carbon and resilient goods and services and helping to make places safer to invest in
- **generating income for the council**: making the most of the council’s natural resources and assets to generate power

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**Kirklees Council**

**Affordable heat for all**

The council is working to ensure all residents can afford to heat their homes. More than 50,000 homes have been improved to-date. Total benefits by 2050 are estimated to be **£250 million** from an initial investment of £11 million from the council plus £10 million from the energy suppliers. Exercise 3

(a) How will your local area be affected by the changing climate and what impacts could this have on local homes and businesses?

(b) What policies are in place to: • ensure new development is low carbon? • encourage renewable energy generation? • ensure new development is resilient to climate impacts like flooding, heat wave, or reduced water availability? • encourage existing buildings to be retrofitted with measures that cut carbon and increase resilience?

(c) How could you and the council work with community organisations within the area to ensure communities are primed to take advantage of ECO and Green Deal funding? Environment and transport

Councils can improve local health and well-being and encourage inward investment by promoting sustainable transport and a clean environment.

Many measures can also provide low cost protection from extreme weather events.

Opportunities include:

- **building the resilience of your own estate** through appropriate tree planting, water harvesting, use of sustainable drainage and natural shading
- **using the planning** system to reduce the need to travel and promote cycling, walking and public transport
- **promoting green and blue infrastructure** by supporting investment natural solutions that will help protect against extreme weather events

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Liverpool City

**Investing in resilience** The City Council has worked with the Environment Agency to improve resilience in three communities prone to heavy flooding.

Measures included realigning and improving a local brook through a school site. This provided sustainable drainage reduced flood-risk, and enhanced biodiversity through new planting. Exercise 4

(a) What impacts could the changing climate have on the natural environment in your ward including local parks and green spaces, coastlines and rivers?

(b) What local transport systems might be vulnerable to climate change in your area and what is being done to increase resilience?

(c) What are the main sources of transport emissions in your area and how are these changing? How could these emissions be cut?

(d) How are you engaging with the council and the community to encourage cycling and walking? Health and social care

There are major opportunities for councils to support local growth and improve people’s lives and their health by making improvements to the local housing stock, setting the framework for development in local plans and by working with local partners to support the most vulnerable.

These include:

- **helping households save money** on their energy bills and keep warm by improving the energy efficiency of local homes
- **helping the most vulnerable** by identifying those most at risk from the impacts of extreme weather such as flooding, over-heating and cold
- **working with partners** to promote active, healthy lifestyles and to refer those at risk of fuel poverty to sources of help

With energy price rises, one in three households is expected to be in fuel poverty by 2030 (unable to afford to keep their home comfortably warm in winter).

**Bath and North East Somerset Council**

**Be a hero**

The council is working in partnership with the health sector to reduce the excess winter death rate. Local GP surgeries are referring vulnerable patients to energy efficiency support to help them to warm their homes and cut bills. Exercise 5

(a) How will your area be affected by the changing climate and what impact could this have on local health and health services? Are any health services or facilities particularly vulnerable?

(b) Who is most vulnerable to extreme weather events in your ward? For example, are there older people’s homes which may be vulnerable to increased flood-risk, heat waves or cold?

(c) What impact could hotter temperatures have on local air quality and how could this affect local health?

(d) How many households in your ward are in fuel poverty? What measures can be taken to reduce this number? Finance

Reducing energy use and avoiding damage costs from extreme weather like flooding makes real financial sense for councils.

Opportunities include:

- **direct cost savings**: through initiatives to reduce the council’s use of energy and water and to minimise waste
- **income generation**: by investing in revenue-generating technology such as microgeneration and decentralised energy, and creating public-private partnerships to minimise risk, maximise investment and boost returns
- **pooling resources**: working in partnership with others, sharing services and increasing your purchasing power
- **external funding**: maximising opportunities to bring in investment through external funding mechanisms such as the Energy Company Obligation and the Green Deal
- **protection from future costs**: making sure you area is prepared to manage future weather-related costs such as the repair and clear-up from flooding and storm damage.

Carbon Trust **carbon management programmes** with more than 3,000 public sector bodies have created actual savings to date of £640 million since 2001, with potential future savings of £2.6 billion.

**It pays to invest** in flood prevention measures. In September 2012, a £38 million flood Cumbrian defence scheme saved 1,500 homes from flooding, paying for itself in one go.

**Woking Borough Council**

**Generating income**

Woking’s energy services company, Thameswey, generates income of approximately £1 million a year for the council from the sale of heat and electricity to 1000 households and 200 commercial customers. Exercise 6

(a) What are the opportunities to save your council money (and reduce carbon emissions) by becoming more energy, water and resource efficient?

(b) What are the opportunities for boosting income through local energy generation or other environmental infrastructure?

(c) Is your council planning now to reduce the costs of future climate impacts in your ward and the wider area? Are planning policies in place to reduce the cost of future flood events and reduce insurance costs? A final word

Action to create low carbon and climate-resilient communities can yield significant opportunities for councils and their communities. Coordinated action can help the deliver on a range of local priorities, improving health outcomes, saving the council money, creating jobs, boosting the local economy, enhancing the natural environment and strengthening local transport systems.

It is up to individual councillor to have the vision, commitment and drive to help the local area realising these benefits and opportunities of climate action in their area.

Exercise 7

(a) What three things will you do after completing this workbook to help your local community seize the opportunities that local climate action can bring?

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3 Further information

Climate Local is an LGA initiative – led by local government for local government – to drive, inspire and support council action on carbon reduction and climate resilience. It was launched in June 2012 and provides an opportunity for councils to sign-up and make a public commitment to tackle climate change.

More information about Climate Local, as well as a suite of guidance materials on carbon reduction and climate resilience can be found on the LGA website www.local.gov.uk/climate-change

Useful links

**Carbon Trust** Tools, guidance and support for measuring and reducing carbon emissions

**Energy Savings Trust** Information on the Green Deal, district heating, local housing and strategic energy planning.

**LGA compare renewables** Details of opportunities for councils to generate secure, sustainable and clean sources of energy

**UKCP09 projections** Projections of climate change at UK level to the 2080s

**Climate Change Risk Assessment** National climate change risk assessment with links to regional summaries

**Cabinet Office** General advice, resources and toolkits for improving community resilience,

**Local Climate Impacts Profile** An online tool to help local areas assess the impacts of current weather events, available from the Environment Agency’s Climate Ready support service

Useful websites

http://www.carbontrust.com/resources

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Organisations/Government-and-local-programmes

http://www.local.gov.uk/compare-renewables

http://www.local.gov.uk/compare-renewables

http://www.local.gov.uk/compare-renewables

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/community-resilience

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/137639.aspx